page_title: Betty May
section_title: Dope-Darling
hierarchical_section_title: Betty May / Dope-Darling
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover of Dope Darling by Bunny Garnett, writing as Leda Burke.
context_page_description: Betty May was a British singer, dancer, and model, who worked primarily in London's West End. She was a member of the London Bohemian set of the inter-war years, claimed to have joined a criminal gang in Paris, was associated with occultist Aleister Crowley, and sat for Augustus John and Jacob Epstein. She became known as the "Tiger Woman". She adopted the name Betty May early in life, for reasons that are unclear.
context_section_description: In 1919, "Bunny" Garnett, writing as Leda Burke, published a sensational novel titled Dope-Darling: A Story of Cocaine whose central female character "Claire" was loosely based on Betty May whom he knew well. The plot revolves around an idealistic young man "Roy" who is taken to a club near Fleet Street frequented by journalists. There he is enraptured by the singer, a sexually experienced young woman who had arrived in London aged sixteen just two years earlier, was duped into taking drugs and then into a life of prostitution. Roy marries Claire and tries to reform her but instead is drawn into drug use himself.
  
  Garnett wrote of Claire: 
  She was always asked to all the parties given in the flashy Bohemian world in which she moved. No dance, gambling party, or secret doping orgy was complete without her. Under the effect of cocaine which she took more and more recklessly, she became inspired by a wild frenzy, and danced like a Bacchante, drank off a bottle of champagne, and played a thousand wild antics.
   The story concludes when Roy and Claire are separated by his military service during the First World War. Claire dies and Roy finds happiness with his childhood sweetheart.
caption: The cover of Dope-Darling: A Story of Cocaine
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